Offaly Naturalist's Field Club

Everytime the Offaly Naturalist Field Club comes to my attention they have something cool on that I can't make it to.  So I'm posting some stuff here to remind myself what's coming up.  I don't know anyone in the club or anything, I just think some of the events for the summer look interesting.

SATURDAY 11 JUNE - Orchids and Sedges
11am for all day trip: Clonfinlough near Clonmacnoise.
Meet at the Maidin Geal Restaurant, Ferbane. Bring wet gear and packed lunch. Leader: Fiona Devery.

SATURDAY 25 JUNE - Blackwood Coillte Nativewood Site
2–4pm: Meet at Mucklagh village at the National School. Leader: Stephen Heery

SATURDAY 2 JULY - Lough Boora Eco Cycle
11am: Guided 8.5km Ecocycle around the Parklands. Numbers limited, booking essential. Bring packed lunch. Email heritage@offalycoco.ie  Leader: Mark McCorry, Bord na Móna

MONDAY 4 – FRIDAY 8 JULY - The Ins and Outs of Eskers, their Geology, Flora and Fauna
9.30am – 3.30pm daily: Ferbane Community Centre. Places limited. €100 per person. Booking essential with
heritage@offalycoco.ie or 057 9346839. Leader: John Feehan

MONDAY 18 – FRIDAY 22 JULY - Summer Kids Club at the Mill
10am to 3pm daily: Summer school programme for 7–11 year olds at Belmont Mills. €85 per child. Email Aoise O’Dwyer at baoise@yahoo.com for further information and bookings.

SATURDAY 30 JULY Moth Night
9.30pm: The Pavilion at Lough Boora Sculpture Park Leader: Alex Copland, BirdWatch Ireland

Birr Castle Demesne

15th May dawned overcast and grey, really not ideal for a trip to the ever lovely Birr Castle in the company of M, S and A.  The lads and I are pretty frequent visitors to Birr, but it was the ladies' first trip. Birr Castle itself is a private residence, owned by the Parsons family for almost 400 years, but the general public can visit the Demesne (50 hectares worth, including formal gardens), the telescope, and the Historic Science Centre in the old stable block. (http://www.birrcastle.com for full details and prices)

I'll mix in a few older photos with the ones taken on the day, just to paint it in better weather light.  The trip started late which was a pity, it meant C1 had to forgo the science musuem part which he loves as we didn't make it back from the walk in time to visit.  Next time :)   We arrived after lunchtime, and while we had picnic stuff with us, the kids were in eating humour there and then.  At the entrance to the castle there's a tea shop, photos don't do it justice.  It's a cute place with tables outside under shelter for more hospitable weather and a good array of properly delicious cakes.  S, as you can see, discovered their bookshelf.

This is the entrance, where the shop is, it's small but lovely, I especially like the stuff aimed at kids - science and nature discovery kits for example.  C2 invested in a magnifying glass, having forgotten his own, more complicated one he usually uses for his mini beast safaris.  I've noticed that he tends to forget about bugs when in the company of charming young ladies though, so there weren't too many discoveries on this trip.   There's lots to catch the eye, including "Champion trees" (we figured one was a boxer, just fresh from it's latest KO fight),  tree seats and bridges over which to play Pooh sticks or just peg a stone or one hundred. 

Wooded walkways look different every visit, dressed in their seasonal colours.  The castle is home to a vast collection of magnolias, I think some of these may have suffered over our recent very harsh winter.  Sweeping down from the terraces towards the river, strongly scented with Azaleas, are grassy slopes peppered with wildflowers.   These are very pretty, but far more importantly they're fun. What are slopes if not for rolling down, right?

In this sort of meadow grass it's easy to find plantain, a very common weed which we used to use as makeshift pop guns as kids.  The stalk is tough and doesn't break when you bend it, it bends very nicely usually, so you sort of loop it up and over the main stem, pinch it tightly and drag it forward sharply to pop off the head. Very much a close range weapon, of course :)



Goose grass is another one for running pitch battles, it's sticky and good for tangling your opponent up. 

The telescope is impressive to this day - In the early 1840’s, the Third Earl of Rosse designed and built the largest telescope in the world. I remember being really proud of that as a kid, we had the 1840s equivalent of the Hubble :)  People came from all over Europe to use it.  The spiral nature of some galaxies was discovered with this telescope, (Reflecting) and it was the largest in the world for over 70 years.  It is fully restored and still works (how cool would it be to get a look!)  The musuem has lots of information about it, alongside interactive models to explain how it worked.

The Demense is blessed with river, lake and streams, a small waterfall and a very old, still working gravity fountain.  No trip is complete without a chance to feed the ducks.  These are very persistent ducks, Irish ducks skilled at guilt tripping you if you don't come armed with something edible. 

Just beware of the killer roses...

My dad used to tell us about Fairy Pancake mixture, that yellowy looking foam that builds up on streams sometimes. I assume he got it from The Fairies by William Allingham
"They live on crispy pancakes Of yellow tide-foam;"  It's always appeaed to me though.

Although seating is provided all over the Demesne (including excellently kept picnic tables) the kids decided they'd find their own: 

 There are any nu,ber of points at which you can stop and engage in some river watching, fast or slow, over stone walls or wooden rails all through the walk.  You don't have to drag your kids away from just one opportunity to play pooh sticks or just drop leaves and stones in, they come along nice and regularly throughout the whole visit. 

The fernery with it's gravity fountain and yet another bridge.  It's usually dark and cool in here, heaven for ferns. 

 This is the Shell Well, instant fascination for young kids.  (the light was getting very poor at this stage)

I always tend to finish a visit by working around to the formal gardens with their hornbeam cloister walk, planted by Anne, Countess of Rosse in the 1940s around an original layout and the world's tallest box hedges. There is a fig, some fantastically scented old roses a spectacular wisteria.  The goldfish pond was murky,  so there was only the merest hint of a flash of gold alongside an unfortunate drowned rodent.

Cloisters are wonderful for assasins sneaking up on younger kids.. 

The Grounds of Charleville Castle, Tullamore

I'll be covering the Castle itself sometime in the future, it's been a while since I was inside the castle itself.   For now I will say simply that Charleville Castle was built by the Earl of Charleville, Charles William Bury and Lady Catherine Marie Charleville in 1798. It was designed by Sir Francis Johnston, who also designed the GPO in Dublin.  It was left uninhabited from 1912 and was in a poor state when I did a volunteer weekend there in the 1990's with the Conservation Volunteers of Ireland.  (I should do more of that sort of thing, it was great craic, that weekend, and it was there I tasted my first elderberry wine, which was gorgeous)  I believe it lost it's roof for a while, which certainly wouldn't have helped.   It's being run by the "Charleville Castle Heritage Trust" now and while there's a lot of work still to be done, things have certainly changed for the better since I stayed there.   Some of the ceilings are beautiful and the rooms are gradually starting to look as they once might have, but as I say, more about that another day.

The castle was built in truly ancient oak forest, and a few of these ancient trees lie just inside the Charleville Road entrance. 

View Larger Map

When I was kid I was told one of these trees was the oldest Oak in Ireland.  It's called the King Oak, and isn't in fact the oldest oak, but it is impressively ancient, commonly aged between 400-800 years.  "The Hutton-Bury family believed that if a major branch fell, one of their family members would die, so they supported the enormous limbs over the years with wooden props. In 1963 the tree was hit by a thunderbolt. It survived but Colonel Charles Howard-Bury died a few weeks later. " (from the Tree council of Ireland website)

The King Oak has massive branches reaching down to the ground, stretching out like arms on a waiting fairground attraction.  It's so easy for anyone to hop up near the end of one of these long limbs and walk or clamber along to get higher into the tree.  Or, you know, just laze on. 

There are 10 other ancient oak trees recorded on the Tree Council website, including the Queen Oak, which was storm damaged and has a birch growing from a fork near the crown of the tree.  (not pictured) We rather took a fancy to this, stories of aliens falling to earth and getting stuck in the ground head and chest first featured.   The adults remained adult.   

Oak apples are plentiful, the new and the old pictured here.  Oak apples are the home of gall wasp larvae, a female gall wasp lays her eggs into developing leaf buds and larvae inject chemicals which cause the oak apple to form, and the larvae feed on this "apple" to grow.    Lesson 134,907 in how to freak out small children.  Mention the word "wasp" in any sentence involving something they are currently holding. 

I like Charleville a lot because there's a very decent sized wood, with leaf laden paths winding around and and places to go adventuring (aka clambering through massive rhododendrons) .  It was particularly gorgeous this trip, bluebells hung around the feet of the trees like a low lying mist, transforming the usual moss and leaf litter into something infinitely more magical. 

Evening was starting to fall as we got closer to the castle, and we searched for some atmosphere

I love this rock, but we were in a huge clump of rhodedendrons and the light was really bad, so this picture isn't all I'd like, but doesn't it have incredible features?   Lots of monster gazing in one place. 

Today's Handy Tip!

You don't need a bag to carry your discoveries, just make sure you wear something with a roomy hood.  Bonus points if what you're carrying makes you look like an archer, I think.